PlainRecalls

Editorial & Corrections Policy

PlainRecalls turns the federal government's published recall data — the FDA's openFDA enforcement records, the CPSC's consumer-product recalls, and NHTSA's vehicle and equipment campaigns — into readable, searchable pages. This page explains how those pages are produced, the standards we hold them to, and exactly how to flag a record that looks wrong.

How Pages Are Produced

PlainRecalls' recall, manufacturer, category, and agency pages are generated from published federal datasets: the FDA's openFDA food, drug, and device enforcement APIs, the CPSC's recall database, and NHTSA's recalls API. We download each source directly from the issuing agency, load it into a structured database, and render every page from that database. The figures you see — recall counts, severity levels, affected-unit figures, dates, and category breakdowns — come directly from each agency's published records; they are not hand-typed and not estimated by us.

This is a data-publishing model: the same template renders tens of thousands of pages so that every recall is covered consistently. We are transparent that these data pages are produced programmatically from the source records rather than written individually. The editorial work goes into the pipeline — how data is sourced, normalized, deduplicated, and categorized — into the methodology, and into the written guides; not into hand-authoring tens of thousands of near-identical recall pages, which would add no accuracy and invite inconsistency.

Sourcing Standards

  • Primary sources only. Every recall comes from an official federal source — the openFDA Enforcement API (food, drugs, biologics, devices), the CPSC recall database, or the NHTSA recalls API. We do not use third-party aggregators.
  • Attribution in context. Each recall page names its issuing agency and recall number, links to the original agency notice, and shows the date it was reported.
  • Derived values are labeled. Numbers we compute ourselves — severity distributions, manufacturer rankings, year-over-year counts — are presented as our analysis of agency data, distinct from each agency's own figures.
  • No invented data. Where a field is unavailable for a record, the page says so rather than filling the gap with an estimate.

Update Cadence

We refresh recall records from each agency on a regular schedule. FDA and CPSC data is typically updated weekly; NHTSA campaigns are incorporated as they are published. There can be a 24–72 hour lag between an agency's official announcement and its appearance on PlainRecalls. Historical recall records remain in our database indefinitely — even after a recall is resolved, the original notice is preserved for reference. The reference date is shown on every recall page.

Corrections Process

If a record on PlainRecalls looks wrong, please tell us. Because our pages are generated from the agencies' own datasets, a genuine error almost always traces back to either the source data or our processing of it — so this is how we handle a report:

  1. Report. Use the contact page with the page URL and the value that looks off.
  2. Verify. We compare the record against the issuing agency's published notice for that recall number.
  3. Fix at the source. If the value is wrong on our side, we correct it in the database and pipeline that generate the page — not just on the single page — so every affected page is fixed at once. If the record faithfully reflects the agency's published data, we explain that and link to the primary source.
  4. Note it. Material corrections are reflected the next time the page rebuilds, with the reported date shown so you can see which release a page is based on.

We aim to acknowledge data-error reports within a few business days.

Editorial Independence

PlainRecalls is an independent publisher and is not affiliated with the FDA, CPSC, NHTSA, or any government agency. We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from any manufacturer, retailer, or other covered entity. Our only revenue is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense; advertisers do not influence which recalls we cover or how we present them. Severity classifications and recall records are taken directly from federal databases and are never edited to favor any manufacturer.

Appropriate Use

PlainRecalls is for informational purposes only and does not constitute safety, medical, legal, or financial advice. A recall's status (active vs. closed) and remedy details can change after we ingest a record. For any safety decision, confirm the current notice with the issuing agency — FDA, CPSC, or NHTSA — before acting. See our full appropriate-use disclaimer.